The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

“Wouldn’t that kill him? I know that the top of the skull is removed in operations, but can you expose Thorn’s forebrain?”

“It won’t hurt me a bit.”

Twenty-four hours passed. Jill tried to keep the crew busy, but there was very little to do except unnecessary cleaning and polish­ing. She wished that she had brought along some of the movies made in Parolando. Except for talking and playing checkers, chess, and card games and throwing darts, there was little to occupy them. She did organize exercise periods to tire them out, but only so much of this could be done, and it was almost as boring as doing nothing.

Meanwhile, the dark and the cold seemed to seep into their bones. And the thought that below them there might be those mysterious beings who had made this world for them was nerve stretching. What were They doing? Why had They not come out?

Above all, what had happened to Piscator?

Cyrano de Bergerac seemed to be especially affected. His long silences and obvious brooding could be caused by the death of Firebrass. It seemed to her, howdver, that something else was bothering him.

Doctor Graves asked her to come to his office. On entering it, she found him sitting on the edge of his desk. Silently, he held out his palm. In it was a tiny black sphere.

“They were all so badly burned that I couldn’t even determine the sex by exterior observation. Obrenova was the smallest, though, so I dissected the smallest corpse first. I found this at once. I didn’t say anything to you because I wanted to examine all of them first.

“She was the only one to have this.”

“Two of them!”

“Yeah. And it makes me wonder about Thorn.”

Jill sat down and lit a cigarette with trembling hands. Graves said, “Listen. The only liquor aboard is in my locker. It’s for medical purposes, but I think you need some medicine. I know I do.”

While he got a bottle out, she told him about overhearing the quarrel between Thorn and Obrenova.

He handed her a cup of the purplish fluid, saying, “So they weren’t just nodding acquaintances?”

“I don’t think so. But I don’t know what all this means.”

“Who does? Except maybe Thorn. Cheers!”

Jill downed the wanning, fruity liquor, and she said, “We found nothing suspicious in the quarters of any of them, Firebrass”, Obrenova’s, or Thorn’s.”

She paused, then said, “There was one thing, significant not by its presence but by its absence. Like the dog in the Sherlock Holmes story who didn’t bark. Thorn’s grail wasn’t in his chopper or in his cabin. I have, however, ordered a more thorough search of the chopper.

“You told me a few hours ago that Thorn’s conscious now. Can he be questioned?”

“Not for very long. I’d advise waiting until he’s stronger. Just now, if he doesn’t want to talk, he can pretend to fall asleep.”

The intercom rang. Graves flipped on the switch.

“Doctor? C.P.O. Cogswell here. I’d like to speak to the cap­tain.”

Jill said, “Captain here.”

“Captain, we just found a bomb in the No. 2 chopper! It’s plastic explosive. Looks like it weighs about two kilograms, and the fuse is connected to a radio receiver. It’s on the underside of the arms locker in the rear.”

“Don’t do anything until I get down there. I want to see it before it’s removed.”

She stood up. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Thorn set off a bomb in Firebrass’ chopper. The investigating crew hasn’t deter­mined the cause of the explosion, but the chief said he thought it might have been a bomb.”

“Yes,” Graves said. “The question is why Thorn would want to do that.”

Jill started to walk toward the door, then stopped. “My God! If Thorn planted bombs in both choppers, he could have hidden some on the ship, too!”

“You never found a transmitter when you searched his quar­ters,” the doctor said. ” Maybe he hid one, or several, on the ship.”

Jill immediately alerted all personnel. After giving orders to Coppename to organize the search parties, she left for the hangar bay. The bomb was where the chief had said it was. She got down on her knees and looked at it with the aid of a flashlight. Then she left the machine.